Adventures in Time Travel: Deeper Undercover (part eight)
A crowd had gathered round the Wendy House, and the SWAT team had to establish a perimeter anyway to keep them from staring into the windows. Hodierna ran up to us, sobbing.
“Oh, my lord king! Oh, Lady Moppet!”
“Get a grip, Hodierna,” snapped John. “What happened?”
“The Queen invited the young ladies into the Wendy House to make – a Battenberg cake I think it was – “
“Who cares? Get on with it!”
“And to swap the stickers they bought at the Winchester Fair. And the lord Oscar went too, because he goes everywhere with the lady Joanna. And then we got a message from the Queen, that she was holding them all hostage, and we must bid the King return immediately to meet her demands!”
“First things first,” said Simon. “What are her demands?”
“She will disclose them only to the King.”
“Fine.” John set off towards the Wendy House, with the rest of us in pursuit.
“All right, your ladyship?” It was Garth, the Little Princess sales rep.
“Hello, Garth,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“I was down the pub, like, starting Saturday night early? Then I heard about this.”
“Isabella!” John yelled. “Show yourself, you she-devil. What in the name of Lucifer do you want?”
Isabella appeared at the window. The sunlight glinted on the sparkly barrettes in her hair.
“To share power with you. Fifty-fifty. You take domestic policy, I’ll take foreign affairs.”
“Isabella. You Are Eight. Years. Old.”
“I’m nine!” she shrieked, suddenly furious. “You can’t even remember how old I am!”
“There’s a little girl sadly in need of some attention,” observed Garth.
“So you don’t think she’s doing this out of a desire to empower herself prompted by a proto-feminist consciousness?” I asked.
“Nope.”
Isabella had regained her composure. “Fifty-fifty,” she repeated. “Or I’ll kill them all. Oscar first.”
She had hold of Oscar; we could just see the top of his head. “No,” I moaned.
John kept his tone reasonable. “How will you kill them, Isabella?
“She may not have thought this through,” he whispered to me.
Isabella smiled.
“I’ll cut their throats with my pocket knife,” she said. “I sharpened it specially. I think that will work. Don’t you?”
“Mummy!” wailed Oscar.
“Oh, God,” I sobbed. “He’s terrified.”
“Mummy! I want some chocolate.”
“Don’t panic,” John told me. “I’ll bluff her. Isabella!” he shouted. “If you don’t release your hostages right now I’m going to – drown Teddy in boiling oil!”
Isabella laughed.
“Teddy’s in here. I’ll give myself this much, I never make the same mistake twice. But I’ve got something to tell you. This whole place is stuffed with explosives, and if anyone tries to get in here, I’ll set them off. I’m not afraid to die. And if I die, I don’t want Teddy to live.”
“Sir,” said Simon stiffly to John. “Perhaps it’s time for the negotiator to take over. Thor has been specially trained in dealing with hostage situations, and he’s been operating undercover in this time period for several months.”
And indeed I vaguely recognised him. Then I realised why: he was the stripper who’d performed at the court whores’ mixer.
Unfortunately Thor didn’t make much more headway than John had.
“The Queen’s best offer is to keep the hostages alive. There’s no question of letting any of them go. It seems she doesn’t trust His Majesty not to renege on any promise he makes as soon as the hostages are released.”
I couldn’t blame her for that. “What choices have we?”
“Not many,” Simon said. “Any attack on the Wendy House, or the use of gas, is likely to result in collateral damage.”
“I don’t care about a bit of paint getting chipped off,” John said.
“He means one of the children could die,” I said.
“Most likely Oscar,” Simon agreed.
“Oh.”
“There is one other option,” said Simon, “but we can’t use it.”
“What’s that?” William asked.
“Our sniper says he could take the Queen out with one shot easily, she keeps hanging around by the windows.”
“Take her out?” William said. “You mean kill her?”
“Affirmative.”
“Oh well,” said John, “if you have to you have to,” and at that moment I had to wonder if he hadn’t staged the whole thing.
“Let’s get on with it, then,” I said shortly.
“It’s not quite that easy, Moppet,” said Simon. “Our mission is to protect Oscar Fitzroy.”
“So kill the psychotic little girl who’s holding him prisoner!”
“Negative, Moppet. Protecting Oscar means protecting Queen Isabella,” said Simon patiently. “Isabella will one day give birth to the next heir to the throne – “
“Oh will she?” John perked up. “Better keep her alive then.”
“If we kill her, we compromise the Client’s existence, and if there’s no Client, there’s no Project Matilda, and if there’s no Matilda – “
“Oscar is never conceived in the first place,” I realised.
“Exactly. Even as you thought you were saving his life, you’d be wiping him from existence.”
“Oh God.”
We fell silent.
“She can’t stay there forever,” William pointed out. “Winter’s coming, for one thing.”
“She has a fireplace,” Thor said, “and she claims to have enough fuel, bottled water and long life ration packets to last for twelve months.”
“Courtesy of the Little Princess people, no doubt,” said Simon grimly.
“Not our fault, mate,” said Garth. “Her little queenship told us His Majesty there had given her permission to go camping.”
“For twelve months, man?” demanded John.
“She did say the two of you weren’t getting on that well,” admitted Garth.
“These explosives she’s talking about,” said Thor, “we can’t be sure she’s really got them till the sniffer dogs get here.”
“Erm,” said Garth. We all turned to look at him.
“It wasn’t my fault!” His voice rose in a squeak. “Her Majesty definitely said that the King had given her permission to hold a field exercise!”
“Didn’t you once think to check any of this with me?” John said.
Garth hung his head.
“I think there’s a possibility,” said Thor, “that the Queen might give up some of the hostages. Say, Oscar, Ela and Joanna? Because she has so many there’s a risk they could overpower her. But,” he paused, “she’ll want something in return.”
That’s when I got my idea.
Half an hour later I was pacing up and down outside the Wendy House, listening to the yells of, “TEASERS! TEASERS!” which were still coming at regular intervals from within. I began to worry that Isabella would kill Oscar out of sheer irritation. John was sitting on the motte with his head in his hands. I went over to offer some comfort.
“Buck up, darling. It looks like our three will be out soon.”
“That still leaves the Scottish princesses,” he said. “What am I going to do about that? How am I going to explain to the King of Scotland that someone has taken my hostages hostage? I’m going to be the laughing-stock of Europe. Damn Isabella to the lowest pit of hell.”
Brother Walter crept up behind him.
“A tense moment, Sire! Looking back, were there any warnings – dreams, visions, nightmares – “
“WILL NO-ONE RID ME OF THIS – “
“For God’s sake, get Brother Walter out of here,” I begged Simon.
As Brother Walter was being dragged away (“Any weather phenomena? Deaths of livestock or pets?”) the helicopter landed again, and Garth got out, carrying a lavender nylon velvet cushion on which rested a glittery pink plastic box.
“Got it out of the vault for you, Lady Moppet.”
I opened the box. And there it lay. The sticker of Isabella’s dreams.
Sparkle Cinderella.
Five minutes later the door of the Wendy House opened and three figures emerged.
Joanna flung herself into John’s arms. “Oh, Daddy!”
Ela flung herself into William’s arms. “Oh, William!”
I made a grab for Oscar. “Oh, Oscar!”
“TEASERS! TEASERS! TEASERS, MUMMY! NOW!”
Simon declared that with the rescue of Oscar the mission was accomplished. To my surprise John didn’t fly into a rage about this: instead he suggested we all retire to the keep for some bacon and eggs.
I kept Oscar on my lap as I fed him bits of cut-up bacon and talked to Thor about how he came to pursue a career in the security services. (“I travelled with the Chippendales for a few years, but I wanted more.”)
On my other side John was doing his best to bribe Simon to stay on and liberate the Scottish princesses. “My mercenaries benefit from a substantial reward package. How would you like to be Sir Simon de Bret of Burke?”
“Sorry, Sir, I’ll have to pass on that,” said Simon coolly. “Might cause a bit of confusion with one of my ancestors, who actually was Sir Simon de Bret of Burke.”
But it was decided that Thor would stay with us as one of Oscar’s Personal Protection Officers. It seemed that on hearing of Oscar’s kidnapping the Client had authorised 24-hour protection for him by an officer armed with an automatic weapon.
Then the evening edition of the Waltham Chronicle of the Universe arrived, with the following headline:
KING JOHN: MY QUEEN IS A SHE-DEVIL
Shock revelation as Izzy snatches royal children to sacrifice to her evil master
Lady in Waiting: She hid her forked tail under her skirts
Local Priest: How Izzy faked taking Communion
Goody Baker: I knew it all along
Pull-out section: Portents – enormous metal bird sighted as gales ravage Marlborough
Turn to page 7 for a diagram showing Queen Isabella’s direct descent from Satan.
“Christ’s bones!” John exploded. “She’s not descended from Satan. I am! It’s not enough to usurp my power, now she’s copying my publicity!”
He was so busy ranting to William of Salisbury about his remarks being “taken completely out of context” that he didn’t notice Simon approaching me for a final word.
“Moppet, for the last time, I urge you to come back with me. You’re in danger here. After this the King’s probably going to realise you had a hand in helping Mrs Kensington escape.”
“I’m prepared to take that chance. And anyway,” I gestured at Oscar, who was happily slamming his fist into the yolk of a fried egg, “how could I leave this little angel?”
Much to the resentment of Hodierna, I took it upon myself to clean Oscar up and tuck him into his cradle. I was rocking him to sleep when John came to find me.
“This SWAT team – “ he began.
I put my finger to my lips and pointed at the sleeping Oscar. Then I got up and let John lead me over to the fire.
“This SWAT team broke out Mrs Kensington, am I correct?” he said.
“Extracted her. Yes.”
“And the noises in the latrine tower…”
“I lied to you. Staged the whole thing.”
He didn’t say anything.
“It was honestly for your own good. Not that you’ll care.” I felt tears welling up. It had been a long day. “I suppose you want me to go.”
“Do you want to go?”
“No!” I wailed. “I want to stay with you and Oscar.”
John considered.
“Well, Moppet,” he said finally, “don’t ever say I don’t show you any mercy. For my own self-respect, and the honour of kings everywhere, I should probably put you to death. Instead, I’m going to confirm you in the role of my official mistress. But don’t think I’ve gone soft. The fact is, I need a mistress with your kind of skills. The others can’t do a thing except embroider.”
“I can embroider too.”
“Even better.”
We fell into each other’s arms.
“But how can I trust you?” asked John a few minutes later.
“Oh, come on,” I said. “What does that matter? You don’t trust anyone. And you’ve tricked me yourself a fair few times. Can’t we trust each other not to be trustworthy?”
We decided we could.
***
I wouldn’t say John and I have a perfect relationship. He’s built a few scaffolds on which to execute me. But he always ends up taking them down again. I’ve written him a few notes that start, ‘Sorry darling, I’ve left you. Hope you’re not too miffed.’ But I always end up putting them on the fire. I will say that since discovering that I have a SWAT team at my beck and call, he’s shown me a bit more respect. Of course, the SWAT team aren’t going to spring into action just because I’m having a few relationship problems. But I’m not about to tell him that.
Oscar, meanwhile, is thriving. John is talking about ‘fast-tracking’ him through weapons training. He came on campaign with us to France and loved every minute of it.
Oh yes, we went to war with France. That was inevitable really.
“Isabella wants war,” Joanna explained to us. “She says the only advantage queens have over kings is that they don’t have to go into battle. She’s hoping you’ll be killed, Daddy, and then she’ll stage a coup de something and rule in her own right. She’s got it all planned. The first thing she’s going to do is appoint a commission to look into revising the forest law. The second thing she’s going to do is paint the solars in all her major castles pink.”
So part of my reason for writing about all this is to clear John’s name. The angry exchange between him and Isabella, during which he claimed marriage to her had lost him his continental possessions, is a matter of record. The fact that from late 1201 to the outbreak of war with France Isabella was running foreign policy herself from her stronghold in the Wendy House isn’t. It doesn’t seem fair.
Not that Isabella gained much from her stratagem. She released the hostages once war with France had begun, but as John didn’t get killed in battle, it didn’t leave her much better off than beforehand. The experience seems to have matured her, though: she has given signs of tiring of I’m A Little Princess and is showing considerable interest in the Little Princess Corporation’s newest title, Child Bride.
Anything else? Well, Simon Debrett-Burke got over me, seemingly, and is dating a Royal Household colleague. Thor is dating Lady Mittens. Brother Walter got fined by the Chronicle Complaint Commission for his ‘Queen Isabella is a demon’ story. The Little Princess Corporation got fined by several bodies for unlawful activities. They’re still rolling out princess products but at least the kidnapping and arms dealing has stopped.
And lastly – the $64,000 question.
Will I undertake another time travel mission? (Other than my regular trips to pick up supplies of contact lenses and make sure Oscar gets his vaccinations, that is).
I don’t rule it out. But – there’s no other way of putting this – only time will tell.
